Sajan Bhanwala wins bronze at U-23 Worlds, first Indian to win medal in Greco-Roman

Pontevedra (Spain), October 19

Sajan Bhanwala became the first Indian Greco-Roman wrestler to win a medal at the Under-23 World Championships when he edged out Ukraine’s Dmytro Vasetskyi on ‘criteria’ in the 77kg category in the bronze medal playoff here.

It was the Ukrainian who pulled off a four-pointer on the edge of the circle for a solid start, but Bhanwala bounced back immediately with a strong move that got him into a position from where he could pin his rival.

Though he couldn’t pull it off, it was good enough to earn four points.

Thereafter, Bhanwala lost two more points and got defensive. For staying passive, Bhanwala was forced into a par terre position and the Ukrainian pulled off another four-pointer from the ground position for a handsome 10-4 lead.

Bhanwala scored two points with a takedown move and with 35 seconds left in the bout, managed to push his rival onto his back to level the scores.

The bout ended at 10-10 but since the Indian had scored the last point he was declared the winner on criteria.

Bhanwala had begun with a 3-0 win over Lithuania’s Aistis Liaugminas but lost his pre-quarterfinals bout to Moldova’s Alexandrin Gutu.

As Gutu made the final, Bhanwala was back in contention for a medal via the repechage route and made full use of it with a 9-6 win over Kazakhstan’s Rassul Zhunis.

Meanwhile, Vikas will fight for a bronze in the 72kg category after losing his semifinal by technical superiority to Croatia’s Pavel Puklavec. He will be up against the winner of the repechage contest between Georgios Theodoros Sotiriadis and Japan’s Daigo Kobayashi.

In the 60kg category, Sumit is in the reckoning for a medal after making the repechage round. He will be up against Kazakhstan’s Olzhas Sultan.

In the 67kg class, Ashu had bowed out after losing his qualification bout by technical superiority to Georgia’s Diego Chkhikvadze.